I am on sabbatical (study leave) and in Basel for a couple of weeks. Staying with good friends, I can't spend all day every day reading my books – so, I have managed one film (documentary about Dietrich Bonhoeffer), two football matches, lots of walking, browsing in bookshops, reading in cafes, meeting people, chatting with friends, visiting a radio studio (Basilisk), sleeping, and so on. I can hardly believe it.

I have already posted on three of the books I have read in my first few days: Ferdinand Schlingensiepen on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Tom Wright on Virtue Reborn and Miroslav Volf on A Public Faith. Yesterday and today – in the margins of fun stuff – I read Stanley Hauerwas's Learning to Speak Christian. Like the others, he ranges through Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas and … er … Bonhoeffer, but also has a good go at Roman Catholic Social Teaching, Methodist theological ethics and other stuff en route.

Now, it is in an interesting collection of essays and sermons on broadly ethical themes. But, it is a little inconsistent in dynamic. Anyway, I don't want here to go deep into a critique or exploration of his views – I would have to be clever to do that; instead, I want to point to four things that struck me while reading the text today. And, I'm not joking, it isn't deep.

1. If I pay £25 for a paperback, I expect that a proofreader will have added punctuation, removed typos and questioned syntax. OK, I expect to have to translate from American into English (both in language, style and context), but, like reading Walter Brueggemann, I had to read half the sentences twice before I understood them. Apart from an odd use of words and phrasing, some sentences are just unnecessarily complicated. Where was the editor?

2. Constant references to Wittgenstein were helpful – especially where they explained Wittgenstein. But, every time I see or hear his name, I also see that photograph of him in the same primary school class as Adolf Hitler. Same education, different outcomes. Maybe education can't – in and of itself – save the world, after all.

3. Bonhoeffer, Wright, Volf and Hauerwas all have something to say about liturgy and the worship language/performance of the church. What struck me, however, was a question arising from a statement: the worship of the church asserts in the world a reality that the world does not see as being real – that the church will live now according to the way of the kingdom Jesus inaugurated; and every act of worship is, in one sense a defiant affirmation of humanity as it should be, of the world now as it one day shall be, of life itself as it should be. What would happen if every clergyperson/worship leader prepared for and led every liturgy with this sense of ultimate hope and defiance, deliberately conscious of doing something powerfully prophetic in the here and now of people's lives?

4. In one sense unrelated to the above, but in the fuss going on in England about bishops banging on about foodbanks and poverty (how dare they?), it has been pointed out that many or most people in the churches agree strongly with the need for welfare reform. Two questions: (a) who said they didn't – and who said that the complaining bishops don't agree with the need for reform (as opposed to noting the real effects of the particular reforms being made just now)? and (b) since when was it the job of bishops to 'reflect' the views of church members? Having just read about Bonhoeffer (again), where would this put Bishop George Bell? Or Bonhoeffer himself, for that matter, even though he wasn't a bishop? The German bishops largely colluded with the views and preferences of their 'members' during the 1920-40s. So, provide us with opinion polls, if you like, but they will not and should not mean that bishops simply go with the flow of popular opinion – even Christian popular opinion.

I conclude this insubstantial ramble with Hauerwas's comment on Catholic Social Teaching and Humanae Vitae in particular:

… the modern political state and economics reduce human activity to choices … that are best for 'me' but do not also lay bare the fact that these choices already subsume us into a worldview in which we must reject some of what makes us human. (p.249)

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12 Responses to “Not deep stuff”

“In one sense unrelated to the above, but in the fuss going on in England about bishops banging on about foodbanks and poverty (how dare they?), it has been pointed out that many or most people in the churches agree strongly with the need for welfare reform.”

Perhaps it depends on which newspapers they read that some people are led to think that poorer people are somehow cheating the system. If the DM says it then it must be true. If they read the G then their opinion may be different?

What would happen if every clergyperson/worship leader prepared for and led every liturgy with this sense of ultimate hope and defiance, deliberately conscious of doing something powerfully prophetic in the here and now of people’s lives?

The credal statement regarding belief in “one holy, catholic and apostolic church” might become believable, rather than a case of Brezhnev pulling down the window blinds on the train (I think you should know that joke).

Glad to hear you are browsing in bookshops, lots of walking etc. And thanks for telling us about the books you’re reading. I’m currently reading a collection of stories by Peter Goldsworthy called “Gravel”. I bought the book some time ago and it’s been collecting dust since then, so I’m happy to have found it again.

I was deeply struck by your point 3, especially “the worship of the church asserts in the world a reality that the world does not see as being real – that the church will live now according to the way of the kingdom Jesus inaugurated; and every act of worship is, in one sense a defiant affirmation of humanity as it should be, of the world now as it one day shall be, of life itself as it should be.” That’s something for all those of us who lead worship to reflect on. Thank you.

Back in the day,before the 2012 election “Welfare Reform ” was IDS’s big idea. It meant a reorganisation of welfare payments so that they went to those in greatest need and and were re-targeted so that work always paid. This is summarised as “We will investigate how to simplify the benefit system in order to improve incentives to work”.This gives rise to organisational and data processing reforms known as “Universal Credit” Indeed the whole policy set out in para 19 of “The Coalition: our programme for government – Gov.uk raised little objection at the time. We should not be opposed to the ideas of welfare reform, universal credit and the work program. We should oppose their implementation when this acts against the interests of those they are supposed to help

Moltmann, in The Church in the Powwer of the Spirit, says an act of worship should leave us disturbed. Now I do sometimes go to services that disturb me but what he means is that in worship we get a vision of the kingdom and that the world as it is is so out of kilter with this vision that we come out of worship fired up to change the world for God.

There is a growing literature on worship as mission (and worship and mission). When you have another sabbatical I can recommend some! Meanwhile, in Common Worship baptism the placing of the giving of the candle at the end is meant to speak of mission and of course the eucharistic dismissal is supposed to do that too.